Friday, July 18, 2008
Thursday, July 17, 2008
Day 4-Glacier National Park (Montana) to (as it turns out) Minot, North Dakota
It’s official – we have a new second favorite place on earth. Glacier National Park is beautiful beyond words. Beyond cameras, too – its scale is too vast and deep to be captured two-dimensionally. Even Ansel Adams’ superb and evocative photos look flat when your remarkable human eyes are taking in the even more remarkable real thing.
But I’m going to give words and pix a try anyway.
Glacier-carved peaks. The craggiest of craggy escarpments. Lakes of a blue so deep it’s almost navy. Luxurious forests. Hanging glaciers with the consistency of rock and the appearance of snow. Waterfalls that seem to appear out of nowhere, but follow them upward with your eyes and you see first the streams, then the rivulets, then the mounds of snow from which they pour. Steep shale abutments and buttes. Pure, fresh, cool air redolent of pine and sun and snow.
And the most incredible mountain road we’ve ever seen. The Going-to-the-Sun Road is about 50 miles long. As it winds through the Park, it climbs up the steep slopes of the Continental Divide, which it crosses at Logan Pass, 6646 glorious feet above sea level. The road was designed by a landscape engineer named Thomas Vind and built between 1921 and 1937. Considering that it takes two months every spring to clear the snow off it and make it once again passable, the construction must have been quite a production.
The Sun Road is considered an engineering marvel. Mr. Vind’s design eschewed the construction norms of the time and called for carving the road directly into the so-called Garden Wall, a three-mile section of nearly vertical cliffs near the summit of Logan Pass. According to our guidebook, this design “replaced 15 switchbacks and hairpin turns with flatter grades, less environmental impact, better panoramic views, more sun exposure for faster spring snowmelt, and only one switchback.” The goal was to harmonize the improvement with the landscape as a first priority. Done and done.
We entered the park from the west last night, and so this morning we took the Sun Road west-to-east. I can’t wait to go back and try it east-to-west, both because it will be differently spectacular and because that way we’ll be hugging the mountainside instead of teetering in the outside lane on the edge of zillions of cubic feet of nothing but air (and gravity). Driving it our way was dazzling, to be sure, but I experienced a giddy anxiety I could have done without. In the spot or two where we got to hug the mountainside, I discovered that the interpolation of an extra lane between our car and the abyss completely erased the heart palpitations and sweaty palms. (Interestingly, I had no problem STANDING on the edge of the crevasse, just driving or being a passenger on it. Also interestingly, I have not had this problem with mountain roads before this trip. I wonder if it, like my lost love for roller coasters, Ferris wheels and the like, is the result of having deep-sixed my left vestibular nerve.)
For the rest of today’s trip, there was no point in taking pictures. Not because it wasn’t magnificent scenery, but because it was the kind of magnificence that doesn’t photograph. Huge landscapes across glacially created plains – the reason for the Big Sky Country name. The sky is indeed enormous; you feel like you’re seeing hundreds of miles in every direction, to the ends of the earth even. Some trick of perspective makes it seem as if you’re actually looking at the roundness of the planet. The sky appears to be tucked under the edges of the land at each horizon, high fluffy clouds and all. It’s like being on a beautiful green plate with sloping edges, inside and a small distance above the lip of a vast inverted blue and white bowl. Extraordinary.
We take US 2 east across the top of the state. There are very few towns along the way, but occasionally there’s a town big enough to have an intersection and wherever there’s an intersection, there’s an amusing sign with the word “Canada” followed by an arrow pointing to the left. Most of the towns we pass aren’t even one-horse towns; they offer no evidence whatsoever of equine, human or any other activity. Occasionally, there’s a bigger town and it always has a casino.
The miles go fast today. For over an hour (and about 75 miles), we don’t see a single other car going either direction. Just beauty and solitude and nature, as far as the eye can see. Around Wolf Point, MT, the landscape starts to look Midwestern instead of Western, probably because of the foliage. With the huge peach globe of the rising moon coloring an out-of-nowhere last gasp of rolling hills and buttes, Montana ends.
North Dakota is instantly less interesting because it’s so familiar – we could be in the plains and farmlands of Illinois now. Our guidebooks tell us the best that can be said of driving across North Dakota is that the roads are nice and flat and fast. We figure we won’t miss anything in the dark and so, our eyes still full of the glories of Montana, we keep going. If we can get to Minot, we’ll be about halfway across.
We do get to Minot, where we’re lucky to get a motel room because the state fair starts tomorrow (news to us), and so comes to an end one of the best traveling days of our lives.
(I have some spectacular additional photos, but I'm having technical difficulties getting them uploaded to my computer. Here are a few pix; I'll post the rest when I figure out how to solve the problem. Update: Here are the additional pix.)
But I’m going to give words and pix a try anyway.
Glacier-carved peaks. The craggiest of craggy escarpments. Lakes of a blue so deep it’s almost navy. Luxurious forests. Hanging glaciers with the consistency of rock and the appearance of snow. Waterfalls that seem to appear out of nowhere, but follow them upward with your eyes and you see first the streams, then the rivulets, then the mounds of snow from which they pour. Steep shale abutments and buttes. Pure, fresh, cool air redolent of pine and sun and snow.
And the most incredible mountain road we’ve ever seen. The Going-to-the-Sun Road is about 50 miles long. As it winds through the Park, it climbs up the steep slopes of the Continental Divide, which it crosses at Logan Pass, 6646 glorious feet above sea level. The road was designed by a landscape engineer named Thomas Vind and built between 1921 and 1937. Considering that it takes two months every spring to clear the snow off it and make it once again passable, the construction must have been quite a production.
The Sun Road is considered an engineering marvel. Mr. Vind’s design eschewed the construction norms of the time and called for carving the road directly into the so-called Garden Wall, a three-mile section of nearly vertical cliffs near the summit of Logan Pass. According to our guidebook, this design “replaced 15 switchbacks and hairpin turns with flatter grades, less environmental impact, better panoramic views, more sun exposure for faster spring snowmelt, and only one switchback.” The goal was to harmonize the improvement with the landscape as a first priority. Done and done.
We entered the park from the west last night, and so this morning we took the Sun Road west-to-east. I can’t wait to go back and try it east-to-west, both because it will be differently spectacular and because that way we’ll be hugging the mountainside instead of teetering in the outside lane on the edge of zillions of cubic feet of nothing but air (and gravity). Driving it our way was dazzling, to be sure, but I experienced a giddy anxiety I could have done without. In the spot or two where we got to hug the mountainside, I discovered that the interpolation of an extra lane between our car and the abyss completely erased the heart palpitations and sweaty palms. (Interestingly, I had no problem STANDING on the edge of the crevasse, just driving or being a passenger on it. Also interestingly, I have not had this problem with mountain roads before this trip. I wonder if it, like my lost love for roller coasters, Ferris wheels and the like, is the result of having deep-sixed my left vestibular nerve.)
For the rest of today’s trip, there was no point in taking pictures. Not because it wasn’t magnificent scenery, but because it was the kind of magnificence that doesn’t photograph. Huge landscapes across glacially created plains – the reason for the Big Sky Country name. The sky is indeed enormous; you feel like you’re seeing hundreds of miles in every direction, to the ends of the earth even. Some trick of perspective makes it seem as if you’re actually looking at the roundness of the planet. The sky appears to be tucked under the edges of the land at each horizon, high fluffy clouds and all. It’s like being on a beautiful green plate with sloping edges, inside and a small distance above the lip of a vast inverted blue and white bowl. Extraordinary.
We take US 2 east across the top of the state. There are very few towns along the way, but occasionally there’s a town big enough to have an intersection and wherever there’s an intersection, there’s an amusing sign with the word “Canada” followed by an arrow pointing to the left. Most of the towns we pass aren’t even one-horse towns; they offer no evidence whatsoever of equine, human or any other activity. Occasionally, there’s a bigger town and it always has a casino.
The miles go fast today. For over an hour (and about 75 miles), we don’t see a single other car going either direction. Just beauty and solitude and nature, as far as the eye can see. Around Wolf Point, MT, the landscape starts to look Midwestern instead of Western, probably because of the foliage. With the huge peach globe of the rising moon coloring an out-of-nowhere last gasp of rolling hills and buttes, Montana ends.
North Dakota is instantly less interesting because it’s so familiar – we could be in the plains and farmlands of Illinois now. Our guidebooks tell us the best that can be said of driving across North Dakota is that the roads are nice and flat and fast. We figure we won’t miss anything in the dark and so, our eyes still full of the glories of Montana, we keep going. If we can get to Minot, we’ll be about halfway across.
We do get to Minot, where we’re lucky to get a motel room because the state fair starts tomorrow (news to us), and so comes to an end one of the best traveling days of our lives.
(I have some spectacular additional photos, but I'm having technical difficulties getting them uploaded to my computer. Here are a few pix; I'll post the rest when I figure out how to solve the problem. Update: Here are the additional pix.)
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Day 3-Yellowstone (Wyoming) to Glacier National Park (Montana)
After a wonderfully refreshing five-and-a-half hours of sleeping like the comatose (or, at least, the way I imagine the comatose must sleep – soundly, insentient, and almost entirely without moving), we get up early again. Breakfast is simple and full of protein, and sitting in the sun 150 feet from Old Faithful, waiting for the eruption, is pleasant and peaceful. As we wait, we think about geothermic activity.
We know from our geology course that the magma plume that created Yellowstone 600,000 years ago is about 200,000 years overdue for its next cataclysmic event (the last three being, respectively, 600,000, a million, and two million years ago). The next one, which is inevitable, will return North America to the Stone Age and create thick clouds of ash and dust that will block the sun and create a year of more of extreme winter around the globe. The vapor and plumes of bubbling water steadily leaking out of Old Faithful and Yellowstone’s many other steam spouts are eye-catching and interesting, but, representing boiling basaltic magma as they do, they’re also a tad alarming.
Still, though, Old Faithful’s eruption is wonderful – after a few minutes of teaser spray, 5,000 gallons of pure, white water shoot 150 feet into the air in a glistening column surrounded by billowing clouds of steam. Thrilling. And how amazing that this phenomenon has evidently been occurring every 75 minutes or so for 600,000 years. Clearly, geothermal energy is the thing to harness – it’s virtually unlimited, nonpolluting and reliable.
The rest of Yellowstone is a low point on our trip. It’s a tacky tourist trap, albeit one set in an exceptionally beautiful assemblage of volcanic plains, glacial mountains, craggy peaks, conifers, burbling brooks and rivers, dramatic falls, thermal pools with thin crusts of ash, etc., etc., etc. We leave (via a gorgeous northwesterly descent) with a strong sense of relief.
It’s only Day 3, but we’re falling seriously behind and we don’t want to risk another midnight National Park run, so with only a little regret we decide to take the interstate and get ourselves across Montana as fast as possible instead of taking the scenic route up through Great Falls and then over to Glacier NP. To get to the interstate, we still have to do the first leg of the scenic route, and the 77 miles from Yellowstone up to Livingston are so gorgeous and soul-replenishing that we forgive US 89 for the trouble it caused us yesterday.
And I90 is an unexpected delight. Not only does it get us to Missoula in record time, it’s spectacularly scenic AND we get to stop at Matt’s Place in Butte. Matt’s is an extremely discouraging-looking establishment next to a gas station that serves a toothsome pork chop sandwich (the Montana classic, apparently) and more first-class chocolate malts. Thank you, Jane and Michael Stern, for your Roadfood book; without it, we would never have considered venturing into a place as sketchy-looking as Matt’s.
We fall in love with Montana as we drive across it from Livingston to Missoula and then up to Kalispell and Glacier National Park. The roads are a miracle – perfectly banked, incredibly well maintained, and virtually deserted. The few other cars we encounter use the left lane for passing only and maintain both appropriate stopping distances and consistent speeds of 75-80mph, road courtesies we thought had vanished forever.
We have to remind ourselves that this I90 is the self-same I90 that is the difficult Dan Ryan in Chicago. Out here, it could easily be part of a national park itself; it’s hard to imagine the scenic route could have been any more scenic. Enormous flat green pastures ease into the gentle, rolling foothills and towering mountains that undulate across the landscape, the foothills seemingly slip-covered in rich tan suede, the khaki and sable mountains studded with evergreens, some like polka dots, others so dense that the mountainsides look carpeted. Every now and then, there’s a sheer shale slope, just for dramatic effect, and huge, gray-black peaks streaked with puddles of snow loom benignly in the high, far background. The sky is indeed big, big, big.
For one astonishing section between Bozeman and Butte, there’s a collection of those crazy rock formations that look like some giant and maniacal child broke up a mountain, then reassembled the craggy boulders into a generally conical shape, but with all sorts of gravity-defying slabs and blocks. These unlikely structures pop up all over Nevada and Arizona, too, but in Montana, evergreen trees have taken root in the spaces between the chunks, adding a tall, green component to the overall red-orange otherworldliness.
Flathead Lake opens before us as we head north, a panoramic spectacle even better than the Bear Lake vista that astonished us yesterday. Better because Flathead Lake looks like Alaska, which we fell in love with last July. Tall, steeper but still rounded glacial mountains rest gently on the calm azure water, ranks upon ranks of evergreens blanket their slopes, more evergreens crowd onto the islands that dot the surface of the water, and in Montana it all basks gorgeously in bright sunshine. We start talking about renting a cabin up here next summer or maybe even buying a summer cottage. It’s not Alaska, but it’s darn close in look and feel, completely appealing in its own right, and a lot easier to get to from Las Vegas.
Glacier National Park keeps the Alaska illusion alive with the serenely magnificent Lake MacDonald. Our adorable little cabin at Lake MacDonald Lodge is just steps from the lake, and the Lodge’s dining room offers a flawless meal of ruby red Idaho trout, simply and perfectly grilled, crunchy steamed broccoli, and a pear and gorgonzola salad that would be right at home in the fanciest of big city restaurants. Dessert is the fresh 54-degree air blowing off the lake.
We know from our geology course that the magma plume that created Yellowstone 600,000 years ago is about 200,000 years overdue for its next cataclysmic event (the last three being, respectively, 600,000, a million, and two million years ago). The next one, which is inevitable, will return North America to the Stone Age and create thick clouds of ash and dust that will block the sun and create a year of more of extreme winter around the globe. The vapor and plumes of bubbling water steadily leaking out of Old Faithful and Yellowstone’s many other steam spouts are eye-catching and interesting, but, representing boiling basaltic magma as they do, they’re also a tad alarming.
Still, though, Old Faithful’s eruption is wonderful – after a few minutes of teaser spray, 5,000 gallons of pure, white water shoot 150 feet into the air in a glistening column surrounded by billowing clouds of steam. Thrilling. And how amazing that this phenomenon has evidently been occurring every 75 minutes or so for 600,000 years. Clearly, geothermal energy is the thing to harness – it’s virtually unlimited, nonpolluting and reliable.
The rest of Yellowstone is a low point on our trip. It’s a tacky tourist trap, albeit one set in an exceptionally beautiful assemblage of volcanic plains, glacial mountains, craggy peaks, conifers, burbling brooks and rivers, dramatic falls, thermal pools with thin crusts of ash, etc., etc., etc. We leave (via a gorgeous northwesterly descent) with a strong sense of relief.
It’s only Day 3, but we’re falling seriously behind and we don’t want to risk another midnight National Park run, so with only a little regret we decide to take the interstate and get ourselves across Montana as fast as possible instead of taking the scenic route up through Great Falls and then over to Glacier NP. To get to the interstate, we still have to do the first leg of the scenic route, and the 77 miles from Yellowstone up to Livingston are so gorgeous and soul-replenishing that we forgive US 89 for the trouble it caused us yesterday.
And I90 is an unexpected delight. Not only does it get us to Missoula in record time, it’s spectacularly scenic AND we get to stop at Matt’s Place in Butte. Matt’s is an extremely discouraging-looking establishment next to a gas station that serves a toothsome pork chop sandwich (the Montana classic, apparently) and more first-class chocolate malts. Thank you, Jane and Michael Stern, for your Roadfood book; without it, we would never have considered venturing into a place as sketchy-looking as Matt’s.
We fall in love with Montana as we drive across it from Livingston to Missoula and then up to Kalispell and Glacier National Park. The roads are a miracle – perfectly banked, incredibly well maintained, and virtually deserted. The few other cars we encounter use the left lane for passing only and maintain both appropriate stopping distances and consistent speeds of 75-80mph, road courtesies we thought had vanished forever.
We have to remind ourselves that this I90 is the self-same I90 that is the difficult Dan Ryan in Chicago. Out here, it could easily be part of a national park itself; it’s hard to imagine the scenic route could have been any more scenic. Enormous flat green pastures ease into the gentle, rolling foothills and towering mountains that undulate across the landscape, the foothills seemingly slip-covered in rich tan suede, the khaki and sable mountains studded with evergreens, some like polka dots, others so dense that the mountainsides look carpeted. Every now and then, there’s a sheer shale slope, just for dramatic effect, and huge, gray-black peaks streaked with puddles of snow loom benignly in the high, far background. The sky is indeed big, big, big.
For one astonishing section between Bozeman and Butte, there’s a collection of those crazy rock formations that look like some giant and maniacal child broke up a mountain, then reassembled the craggy boulders into a generally conical shape, but with all sorts of gravity-defying slabs and blocks. These unlikely structures pop up all over Nevada and Arizona, too, but in Montana, evergreen trees have taken root in the spaces between the chunks, adding a tall, green component to the overall red-orange otherworldliness.
Flathead Lake opens before us as we head north, a panoramic spectacle even better than the Bear Lake vista that astonished us yesterday. Better because Flathead Lake looks like Alaska, which we fell in love with last July. Tall, steeper but still rounded glacial mountains rest gently on the calm azure water, ranks upon ranks of evergreens blanket their slopes, more evergreens crowd onto the islands that dot the surface of the water, and in Montana it all basks gorgeously in bright sunshine. We start talking about renting a cabin up here next summer or maybe even buying a summer cottage. It’s not Alaska, but it’s darn close in look and feel, completely appealing in its own right, and a lot easier to get to from Las Vegas.
Glacier National Park keeps the Alaska illusion alive with the serenely magnificent Lake MacDonald. Our adorable little cabin at Lake MacDonald Lodge is just steps from the lake, and the Lodge’s dining room offers a flawless meal of ruby red Idaho trout, simply and perfectly grilled, crunchy steamed broccoli, and a pear and gorgonzola salad that would be right at home in the fanciest of big city restaurants. Dessert is the fresh 54-degree air blowing off the lake.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
Day 2-Capitol Reef National Park (Utah) to Yellowstone (Wyoming)
One could easily spend two weeks doing what we thought we could do in two days. Although the distance from Las Vegas to Yellowstone as the crow flies is not daunting, that distance is utterly irrelevant when one is not a crow. Everything takes us a little over twice as long as expected as we pilot our car and see the sights on the twisting roads that skirt the mountains of Utah, the southeastern corner of Idaho, and the west coast of Wyoming. The scenery is so breathtaking, the geological diversity so stunning, and the potential for delicious drive-in food so tempting that we end up arriving at the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone at 1:00 in the morning the day after we were supposed to arrive. The last few hours of the drive had all the earmarks of the Bataan death march. I haven’t even seen Yellowstone in the daytime yet and I already sort of hate its guts.
The day started beautifully. We’re definitely trying to go with the flow on this trip, but having already – on day one – bookmarked three sites on our must-see list for either the return trip or some future trip, we decided to get moving early. Despite our “never get up before 9am” rule, we got up at 7:45am Mountain time (which was a lot like 6:45am for us) and started our day in the Capitol Reef National Park.
“Oh my heck!” as people kept saying in Utah. Capitol Reef is reminiscent of both Bryce Canyon and Zion, but it’s more diverse geologically and it features the Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile long wrinkle in the crust of the earth created some 70 million years ago by violent seismic activity. Like all geologic features (with the exception, I suppose, of actually erupting volcanoes), the wrinkle and its surroundings look tranquil, majestic and unflappable as they bask in the morning sun.
It’s hard not to anthropomorphize these buttes and mountains; they’re covered with holes and dents and protrusions that conspire to create faces and bodies, like giant canvases of abstract art. They seem to me to be stretching in the recently risen sun, settling in for their day and only incidentally inspiring awe in wide-eyed humans. Capitol Reef’s mountains are cluttered (gorgeously) with shale and sandstone rubble that, while affixed and unmoving, appears to be cascading downward. The rocks balanced on the slopes are cantilevered as if they’ll continue their downward fall any minute – which they will, geologically speaking. And the shale, which breaks under pressure into flat sheets (think flints or chalkboards), has littered the landscape over the last few hundreds of thousands of years with what look like deep orange-red two-by-fours.
After we reluctantly leave Capitol Reef, we wend our way up to the Uinta National Forest and Mount Nebo. Here, we see a little of the dramatic ferrite-rich rock of southern Utah, but far more in the way of evergreens, aspens, cattle, and the gentle slopes characteristic of glacially created mountains, too high to have been carved smooth by rivers, but for the most part too low to sport the craggy peaks that crested even the glaciers. These mountains rest gently on the landscape, their rises and folds like the enormous paws of colossal animals in repose. As we switchback our way up to the Mt. Nebo overlook at about 9200 feet, the greenery keeps parting to offer dizzyingly sensational vistas of rock, forest, mountainside and, now, a few snow-streaked craggy peaks, too. Every time we get out of the car to gape or to read a historical or geological marker, the silence fills our ears with its soundless beauty and our hearts and souls with tranquility.
Everyday reality reasserts itself in the form of the nasty traffic jam that slows us up on our way out of Salt Lake City. After the adventuresome and thrilling drive on the unpaved road that shoots down the Santaquin Canyon from Nebo, during which we saw no one from 8500 feet down to 4500 feet (thankfully, given the narrow twistiness of the road), the traffic is not only unwelcome but bizarre too, like a category mistake.
It’s not as bad as it might be, though, since we have just had a late lunch at Hire’s Big H in Salt Lake City, a drive-in with an unusually delicious bacon cheeseburger (the bacon thickly cut, freshly cooked and crisp), a world-class grilled cheese sandwich, and the best chocolate malt I have ever had. (No vegetables so far today, unless you count the onions inside the onion rings, which I do not.) It turns out to be lucky that we eat more than we intended to, since this will prove to be our last food for the day.
The drive from Salt Lake City to Yellowstone quickly takes a turn for the worse. Our GPS, guide books and maps keep telling us things are 23 miles away, then reneging on those promises. Miles pile on miles and traffic is city-ish for too long on US 89 (the scenic route which is indeed that, although it can’t compare to Utah 12). There is one bizarre stretch of one-way road just north of Montpelier, Idaho, that is regulated by a stoplight with a sign that states the delay is 15 minutes and prohibits running the red light. Once the light turns green (finally), we and our accumulated companion cars simply have to trust in our fellow man not to run the red light at the other end and crash head-on into us as we traverse a narrow, unpaved gully littered with construction equipment. Apparently, Western-state drivers are either accustomed to this setup or less impatient than the drivers we’re used to – there is no trouble whatsoever.
As the miles stretch interminably – we really had no idea, it turns out, how BIG these Western states are – and Yellowstone begins to seem like a pipe dream, there are of course marvels to see. Coming up on Bear Lake from the south is jaw-droppingly beautiful. We sigh, exclaim and nearly drive the car off the road in our zeal to fill our eyes. The verdant high-altitude pastures and mountains all along the route are bucolic and serenely glorious. In our short time in Idaho, we see llamas calmly grazing on green fields in the apricot-colored sunlight.
But the miles between Jackson, Wyoming, and our actual hotel room in Yellowstone are appalling. The sun goes down around 10:30 and we soon feel as if we’ve spent our entire lives driving on a cramped two-lane road lined on both sides with tall trees and thick scrub, no one in front of us and no one behind. The moon is intermittently visible and, as it rises higher and higher, very picturesque, but it is of little comfort when every turn in the road leads only to more road and lights indicating civilization frustratingly refuse to appear. It’s also a bit frightening since every now and then the thick forest breaks and we see only treetops out the side window; for all we know, there could be nothing but air between the crumbling side of the road and the terra firma of a valley 6,500 dark feet below.
10:30 becomes 11:30, then 12:30. Will it ever end? We imagine, with slightly desperate giggles, driving on forever, until the forest reclaims the road altogether (a process that is seriously underway) and us along with it. The sun will never rise, we will never get to the Inn, the kids will have to go to Las Vegas and sell our stuff…
But the Inn does finally appear – and I can’t remember a more welcome sight. I’m counting on Yellowstone to make it up to me tomorrow by being spectacular enough for those last horrible miles to have been worth it. And a nice healthy breakfast at the so-called “best restaurant in any national park” Old Faithful Inn café sounds pretty darn great, too.
The day started beautifully. We’re definitely trying to go with the flow on this trip, but having already – on day one – bookmarked three sites on our must-see list for either the return trip or some future trip, we decided to get moving early. Despite our “never get up before 9am” rule, we got up at 7:45am Mountain time (which was a lot like 6:45am for us) and started our day in the Capitol Reef National Park.
“Oh my heck!” as people kept saying in Utah. Capitol Reef is reminiscent of both Bryce Canyon and Zion, but it’s more diverse geologically and it features the Waterpocket Fold, a 100-mile long wrinkle in the crust of the earth created some 70 million years ago by violent seismic activity. Like all geologic features (with the exception, I suppose, of actually erupting volcanoes), the wrinkle and its surroundings look tranquil, majestic and unflappable as they bask in the morning sun.
It’s hard not to anthropomorphize these buttes and mountains; they’re covered with holes and dents and protrusions that conspire to create faces and bodies, like giant canvases of abstract art. They seem to me to be stretching in the recently risen sun, settling in for their day and only incidentally inspiring awe in wide-eyed humans. Capitol Reef’s mountains are cluttered (gorgeously) with shale and sandstone rubble that, while affixed and unmoving, appears to be cascading downward. The rocks balanced on the slopes are cantilevered as if they’ll continue their downward fall any minute – which they will, geologically speaking. And the shale, which breaks under pressure into flat sheets (think flints or chalkboards), has littered the landscape over the last few hundreds of thousands of years with what look like deep orange-red two-by-fours.
After we reluctantly leave Capitol Reef, we wend our way up to the Uinta National Forest and Mount Nebo. Here, we see a little of the dramatic ferrite-rich rock of southern Utah, but far more in the way of evergreens, aspens, cattle, and the gentle slopes characteristic of glacially created mountains, too high to have been carved smooth by rivers, but for the most part too low to sport the craggy peaks that crested even the glaciers. These mountains rest gently on the landscape, their rises and folds like the enormous paws of colossal animals in repose. As we switchback our way up to the Mt. Nebo overlook at about 9200 feet, the greenery keeps parting to offer dizzyingly sensational vistas of rock, forest, mountainside and, now, a few snow-streaked craggy peaks, too. Every time we get out of the car to gape or to read a historical or geological marker, the silence fills our ears with its soundless beauty and our hearts and souls with tranquility.
Everyday reality reasserts itself in the form of the nasty traffic jam that slows us up on our way out of Salt Lake City. After the adventuresome and thrilling drive on the unpaved road that shoots down the Santaquin Canyon from Nebo, during which we saw no one from 8500 feet down to 4500 feet (thankfully, given the narrow twistiness of the road), the traffic is not only unwelcome but bizarre too, like a category mistake.
It’s not as bad as it might be, though, since we have just had a late lunch at Hire’s Big H in Salt Lake City, a drive-in with an unusually delicious bacon cheeseburger (the bacon thickly cut, freshly cooked and crisp), a world-class grilled cheese sandwich, and the best chocolate malt I have ever had. (No vegetables so far today, unless you count the onions inside the onion rings, which I do not.) It turns out to be lucky that we eat more than we intended to, since this will prove to be our last food for the day.
The drive from Salt Lake City to Yellowstone quickly takes a turn for the worse. Our GPS, guide books and maps keep telling us things are 23 miles away, then reneging on those promises. Miles pile on miles and traffic is city-ish for too long on US 89 (the scenic route which is indeed that, although it can’t compare to Utah 12). There is one bizarre stretch of one-way road just north of Montpelier, Idaho, that is regulated by a stoplight with a sign that states the delay is 15 minutes and prohibits running the red light. Once the light turns green (finally), we and our accumulated companion cars simply have to trust in our fellow man not to run the red light at the other end and crash head-on into us as we traverse a narrow, unpaved gully littered with construction equipment. Apparently, Western-state drivers are either accustomed to this setup or less impatient than the drivers we’re used to – there is no trouble whatsoever.
As the miles stretch interminably – we really had no idea, it turns out, how BIG these Western states are – and Yellowstone begins to seem like a pipe dream, there are of course marvels to see. Coming up on Bear Lake from the south is jaw-droppingly beautiful. We sigh, exclaim and nearly drive the car off the road in our zeal to fill our eyes. The verdant high-altitude pastures and mountains all along the route are bucolic and serenely glorious. In our short time in Idaho, we see llamas calmly grazing on green fields in the apricot-colored sunlight.
But the miles between Jackson, Wyoming, and our actual hotel room in Yellowstone are appalling. The sun goes down around 10:30 and we soon feel as if we’ve spent our entire lives driving on a cramped two-lane road lined on both sides with tall trees and thick scrub, no one in front of us and no one behind. The moon is intermittently visible and, as it rises higher and higher, very picturesque, but it is of little comfort when every turn in the road leads only to more road and lights indicating civilization frustratingly refuse to appear. It’s also a bit frightening since every now and then the thick forest breaks and we see only treetops out the side window; for all we know, there could be nothing but air between the crumbling side of the road and the terra firma of a valley 6,500 dark feet below.
10:30 becomes 11:30, then 12:30. Will it ever end? We imagine, with slightly desperate giggles, driving on forever, until the forest reclaims the road altogether (a process that is seriously underway) and us along with it. The sun will never rise, we will never get to the Inn, the kids will have to go to Las Vegas and sell our stuff…
But the Inn does finally appear – and I can’t remember a more welcome sight. I’m counting on Yellowstone to make it up to me tomorrow by being spectacular enough for those last horrible miles to have been worth it. And a nice healthy breakfast at the so-called “best restaurant in any national park” Old Faithful Inn café sounds pretty darn great, too.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Day 1-Las Vegas to Capitol Reef National Park (Torrey, Utah)
(This and the next few posts (that is, the posts on top of this one) are a travelogue. We're on the road with very limited access to the Internet - mountains, you know - so I'll post what I'm writing whenever I can.)
We covered 500 of the most glorious miles imaginable today – and that’s only horizontally speaking. Vertically speaking, we went from 2000 feet up to 9600 feet and then back down to around 6800 feet. Meteorologically speaking, we went from 109 degrees with no humidity to 60 degrees and a downpour, including five minutes of pea-sized hail. (We tried to remember the last time we were in a rainstorm that lasted for well over 30 minutes – no luck. It was at least a year ago. And as for hail, haven’t seen that since we moved away from Chicago in 2005.)
In an amazing 40-mile stretch of Utah 12 north of Bryce Canyon, the topography goes within less than 20 minutes (and via a sensational series of those breathtaking mountain road switchbacks) from spiky ferrite-rich (aka deep orange-red) sandstone hoodoos to rolling high-altitude plains dense with emerald green pines and tall, thin, ramrod straight trunks of pure white birch (or is it aspen? poplar? I’m no botanist) clustered together like massive stands of gigantic drinking straws. We see sheer 1000-foot drops, wind-carved caves, black and tan and white cattle grazing in lush green meadows 9,000 feet in the air, and dainty deer calmly grazing by the side of the road. The deer look up as we drive by, as if to murmur “Just snacking here. Go on about your business,” their expressions patient, humorous, inquisitive and indulgent.
There’s one scenic overlook about 20 miles south of Torrey where the entire high basin is set out before you. Black mountains, whitewashed limestone shorter mountains speckled with smallish shrubbery, more swaths of striated orange sandstone topped with whimsical knobs and spikes, and a gorgeous reservoir of blue water sparkling in the resurgent sun. A helpful sign informs visitors that the black mountains in the distance are the Henry Mountains, and that the state of Connecticut or the country of Luxembourg (for European visitors, I guess) would fit easily into the space before our eyes. And the silence is preternatural, prehistoric, an absence of sound that is itself a sound, serene and beautiful. It’s a marvel.
As is Zion National Park, a desert setting created, ironically enough, entirely by water. Water forms up on the Colorado Plateau and rushes downward, through Bryce Canyon, to Zion, then on to the Grand Canyon – successive rungs in what is called the Grand Staircase. We’ve been studying geology in preparation for this trip and the spectacular scenery, which would be fabulous enough if we knew nothing of its origins, is even more spectacular armed with our rudimentary knowledge. With a majestic and gorgeous eloquence, the topography makes manifest the power and the inexorability of time and the forces of nature. Give water and wind and heat and pressure enough time and they will build a glory like Zion or Bryce, then reduce it to rubble, then build something else equally fabulous and extraordinary. All without thought or will, consciousness or purpose.
Our eyes full, we find our way back to more mundane delights, like dinner. The Capitol Reef Inn boasts a caf̩ with surprisingly good food Рlocal, organic and fresh. Lots of vegetables, which is too often a luxury on a road trip. The Ten-Vegetable Salad has the promised 10 vegetables, not counting the lettuce or the cabbage in its base and, wonderfully, not including onions (which I hate): zucchini, squash, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, red pepper, green pepper, carrots, tomatoes and sprouts. And they all taste as if they were picked earlier this afternoon. Glorious.
(Pictures, especially those taken with one's cell phone, are such a weak representation of nature's glory, but I'll post a few anyway. They're certainly better than nothing, and they are reminiscent, if not representative.)
We covered 500 of the most glorious miles imaginable today – and that’s only horizontally speaking. Vertically speaking, we went from 2000 feet up to 9600 feet and then back down to around 6800 feet. Meteorologically speaking, we went from 109 degrees with no humidity to 60 degrees and a downpour, including five minutes of pea-sized hail. (We tried to remember the last time we were in a rainstorm that lasted for well over 30 minutes – no luck. It was at least a year ago. And as for hail, haven’t seen that since we moved away from Chicago in 2005.)
In an amazing 40-mile stretch of Utah 12 north of Bryce Canyon, the topography goes within less than 20 minutes (and via a sensational series of those breathtaking mountain road switchbacks) from spiky ferrite-rich (aka deep orange-red) sandstone hoodoos to rolling high-altitude plains dense with emerald green pines and tall, thin, ramrod straight trunks of pure white birch (or is it aspen? poplar? I’m no botanist) clustered together like massive stands of gigantic drinking straws. We see sheer 1000-foot drops, wind-carved caves, black and tan and white cattle grazing in lush green meadows 9,000 feet in the air, and dainty deer calmly grazing by the side of the road. The deer look up as we drive by, as if to murmur “Just snacking here. Go on about your business,” their expressions patient, humorous, inquisitive and indulgent.
There’s one scenic overlook about 20 miles south of Torrey where the entire high basin is set out before you. Black mountains, whitewashed limestone shorter mountains speckled with smallish shrubbery, more swaths of striated orange sandstone topped with whimsical knobs and spikes, and a gorgeous reservoir of blue water sparkling in the resurgent sun. A helpful sign informs visitors that the black mountains in the distance are the Henry Mountains, and that the state of Connecticut or the country of Luxembourg (for European visitors, I guess) would fit easily into the space before our eyes. And the silence is preternatural, prehistoric, an absence of sound that is itself a sound, serene and beautiful. It’s a marvel.
As is Zion National Park, a desert setting created, ironically enough, entirely by water. Water forms up on the Colorado Plateau and rushes downward, through Bryce Canyon, to Zion, then on to the Grand Canyon – successive rungs in what is called the Grand Staircase. We’ve been studying geology in preparation for this trip and the spectacular scenery, which would be fabulous enough if we knew nothing of its origins, is even more spectacular armed with our rudimentary knowledge. With a majestic and gorgeous eloquence, the topography makes manifest the power and the inexorability of time and the forces of nature. Give water and wind and heat and pressure enough time and they will build a glory like Zion or Bryce, then reduce it to rubble, then build something else equally fabulous and extraordinary. All without thought or will, consciousness or purpose.
Our eyes full, we find our way back to more mundane delights, like dinner. The Capitol Reef Inn boasts a caf̩ with surprisingly good food Рlocal, organic and fresh. Lots of vegetables, which is too often a luxury on a road trip. The Ten-Vegetable Salad has the promised 10 vegetables, not counting the lettuce or the cabbage in its base and, wonderfully, not including onions (which I hate): zucchini, squash, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower, red pepper, green pepper, carrots, tomatoes and sprouts. And they all taste as if they were picked earlier this afternoon. Glorious.
(Pictures, especially those taken with one's cell phone, are such a weak representation of nature's glory, but I'll post a few anyway. They're certainly better than nothing, and they are reminiscent, if not representative.)
Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Sex and Parenting
Two articles, both of which struck me as very silly when I read them, apparently took root in my head and germinated because here I am writing about them weeks later. One was a story about two different couples, each of which decided to save their marriage by having sex every day for, in one case, a year, and in the other, 110 days. (Don't recall how they came up with that weird number.)
The other story was about something called "shared parenting." Could that phrase be any dumber? Given the definition of the word "shared," it seems to me that parenting by two people qualifies as such from the moment a child appears on the scene, regardless of who changes more diapers or goes to more school conferences. Actually, "parenting" is a stupid word, too, and its use is a great indicator of a sorry shift in cultural focus. Previous generations didn't "parent." They raised children. With the emphasis on the children, not the parent or the act of being a parent.
Anyway, according to this second story, couples are hiring consultants and establishing detailed time-and-responsibility models and assigning drudgery levels to tasks and entering into contracts, all in order to divvy up parental responsibilities so that neither parent feels exploited or overburdened.
What the hell? Why on earth would anyone want to turn either sex or parenting into a to-do list item?
I'm not sure what to say about the sex marathoners, other than it seems really rather pitiful to be either so unsure of your partner or so uninterested that you think the best way to recover and maintain intimacy is to calendar a long-term series of daily sexual appointments with him or her. How is transforming sex into yet another task to accomplish before you sleep supposed to help anything? And really: call me romantic or perhaps old-fashioned, but I prefer to think of sex as something one does out of desire and because it's fun, not as a means to recapture a lost feeling by simulating it.
Or maybe, in a culture that includes this shared parenting silliness, sex is merely another of the tasks that has to be allocated. The shared parenting article was about highly educated, dual-income couples seeking to assure that having children wouldn't ruin their lives or their relationships with one another. The level of worry they claimed to feel on this front was staggering (as well as selfish), and I wondered why they were having kids at all if they were so sure the results would be catastrophic. Wouldn't it make more sense to embark on starting and raising a family with joy, optimism and a plan to cross problematic bridges together as partners if and when they appeared?
But the folks in the shared parenting article were much too apprehensive and determined to rely on anything so fluffy as trust and open communication (or, evidently, any sort of continuing ability to work things out as a couple). Instead, they undertook a scientific process, using spreadsheets and everything, to apportion time, tasks and responsibilities.
A great deal of what fell into the category of "parenting tasks" seemed to be household responsibilities, raising two interesting questions (in addition to the obvious conclusion that these couples have more money than sense). First, what did they do before they had kids? Live in filth? Buy new clothes when the old ones needed washing or dry-cleaning? Starve? And second, why are they hiring parenting consultants instead of cleaning services? Wasting precious spare time on household tasks they can easily hire others to do, not to mention wasting time on drawing up spreadsheets to apportion such tasks, is the last thing busy, two-career couples should be doing. (Is anyone else noticing that the children - the purported point of all these machinations - are nowhere in this picture?)
I think good parenting is primarily about children, not parents. The point is to love your children and guide them along the road to maturity and independence. It's not about how many diapers you change or meals you cook or carpools you drive, how much laundry you do or homework you help with. And it's certainly not about making sure you don't do more of those things than your parenting partner, if you're lucky enough to have one. Parenting isn't a competition between the parents. People have different strengths and weaknesses, different likes and dislikes, different efficiency levels. "Equal" is measured more by how it feels and works than by metrics like hours spent or level of drudgery handled.
Anyone who's read my Suit Yourself essays knows that there are few things I enjoyed less than teacher conferences and elementary school talent productions (if I may use so grandiose a term for such excruciating events). My husband manned the bulk of those. But I was nearly always our family's cook and, most of the time, I loved that responsibility. (When I didn't, we went out to eat.) My husband liked the solitude of cleaning up the kitchen after meals, but he developed a complete inability to fold clothes during the brief period he was responsible for laundry. He consulted on science and math homework; I consulted on English and history. I guess we shared planning birthday parties, hauling the kids from place to place, and that sort of thing. I really don't remember, but it all got done and we all, kids included, had a great time. Of course, things periodically fell out of balance; when that happened, we talked to each other, sometimes loudly, and then cooperated to right the ship.
Isn't that what it comes down to under any circumstances? Even after the shared-parenting couples angrily wave their spreadsheets at each other and the sex marathoners cross their finish line, the imbalances must still get resolved, if at all, via straight talk, mutual regard and trust. And that brings me to the questions germinating in my brain. What kind of well-intentioned people, which the ones in these articles clearly were, want or need to transform parenting and sex into chores? What kind of relationships must they have with each other? Where is the straight talk, mutual regard and trust? What happened to being actually (rather than contractually) in it together?
All the spreadsheets and sex marathons in the world can't give you what being partners who care about making each other happy can. Lack of that is the problem, and the fixes discussed in the two articles are the relationship equivalent of taking an aspirin for a tumor.
The other story was about something called "shared parenting." Could that phrase be any dumber? Given the definition of the word "shared," it seems to me that parenting by two people qualifies as such from the moment a child appears on the scene, regardless of who changes more diapers or goes to more school conferences. Actually, "parenting" is a stupid word, too, and its use is a great indicator of a sorry shift in cultural focus. Previous generations didn't "parent." They raised children. With the emphasis on the children, not the parent or the act of being a parent.
Anyway, according to this second story, couples are hiring consultants and establishing detailed time-and-responsibility models and assigning drudgery levels to tasks and entering into contracts, all in order to divvy up parental responsibilities so that neither parent feels exploited or overburdened.
What the hell? Why on earth would anyone want to turn either sex or parenting into a to-do list item?
I'm not sure what to say about the sex marathoners, other than it seems really rather pitiful to be either so unsure of your partner or so uninterested that you think the best way to recover and maintain intimacy is to calendar a long-term series of daily sexual appointments with him or her. How is transforming sex into yet another task to accomplish before you sleep supposed to help anything? And really: call me romantic or perhaps old-fashioned, but I prefer to think of sex as something one does out of desire and because it's fun, not as a means to recapture a lost feeling by simulating it.
Or maybe, in a culture that includes this shared parenting silliness, sex is merely another of the tasks that has to be allocated. The shared parenting article was about highly educated, dual-income couples seeking to assure that having children wouldn't ruin their lives or their relationships with one another. The level of worry they claimed to feel on this front was staggering (as well as selfish), and I wondered why they were having kids at all if they were so sure the results would be catastrophic. Wouldn't it make more sense to embark on starting and raising a family with joy, optimism and a plan to cross problematic bridges together as partners if and when they appeared?
But the folks in the shared parenting article were much too apprehensive and determined to rely on anything so fluffy as trust and open communication (or, evidently, any sort of continuing ability to work things out as a couple). Instead, they undertook a scientific process, using spreadsheets and everything, to apportion time, tasks and responsibilities.
A great deal of what fell into the category of "parenting tasks" seemed to be household responsibilities, raising two interesting questions (in addition to the obvious conclusion that these couples have more money than sense). First, what did they do before they had kids? Live in filth? Buy new clothes when the old ones needed washing or dry-cleaning? Starve? And second, why are they hiring parenting consultants instead of cleaning services? Wasting precious spare time on household tasks they can easily hire others to do, not to mention wasting time on drawing up spreadsheets to apportion such tasks, is the last thing busy, two-career couples should be doing. (Is anyone else noticing that the children - the purported point of all these machinations - are nowhere in this picture?)
I think good parenting is primarily about children, not parents. The point is to love your children and guide them along the road to maturity and independence. It's not about how many diapers you change or meals you cook or carpools you drive, how much laundry you do or homework you help with. And it's certainly not about making sure you don't do more of those things than your parenting partner, if you're lucky enough to have one. Parenting isn't a competition between the parents. People have different strengths and weaknesses, different likes and dislikes, different efficiency levels. "Equal" is measured more by how it feels and works than by metrics like hours spent or level of drudgery handled.
Anyone who's read my Suit Yourself essays knows that there are few things I enjoyed less than teacher conferences and elementary school talent productions (if I may use so grandiose a term for such excruciating events). My husband manned the bulk of those. But I was nearly always our family's cook and, most of the time, I loved that responsibility. (When I didn't, we went out to eat.) My husband liked the solitude of cleaning up the kitchen after meals, but he developed a complete inability to fold clothes during the brief period he was responsible for laundry. He consulted on science and math homework; I consulted on English and history. I guess we shared planning birthday parties, hauling the kids from place to place, and that sort of thing. I really don't remember, but it all got done and we all, kids included, had a great time. Of course, things periodically fell out of balance; when that happened, we talked to each other, sometimes loudly, and then cooperated to right the ship.
Isn't that what it comes down to under any circumstances? Even after the shared-parenting couples angrily wave their spreadsheets at each other and the sex marathoners cross their finish line, the imbalances must still get resolved, if at all, via straight talk, mutual regard and trust. And that brings me to the questions germinating in my brain. What kind of well-intentioned people, which the ones in these articles clearly were, want or need to transform parenting and sex into chores? What kind of relationships must they have with each other? Where is the straight talk, mutual regard and trust? What happened to being actually (rather than contractually) in it together?
All the spreadsheets and sex marathons in the world can't give you what being partners who care about making each other happy can. Lack of that is the problem, and the fixes discussed in the two articles are the relationship equivalent of taking an aspirin for a tumor.
Monday, June 30, 2008
The Need for Speed
Las Vegas is the only place I've ever driven where people routinely drive under posted speed limits. This probably isn't the result of an excess of caution or a desire to save fuel by going slower - on the highways, people dart all over the road as speedily (and as blindly) as maniacal bats out of hell. But on main thoroughfare streets, nearly all of which have six roomy lanes as well as wide, convenient and separate left- and right-turn lanes just about anywhere you might think of wanting to turn, drivers tool along between 30 and 35 mph even though the speed limit is 45. Often, there is one such stately driver in each of the three lanes going your direction. It's like being behind the front phalanx in some sort of boring parade. You're just stuck.
I've been trying to figure out why anyone, faced with a stretch of open road, wouldn't promptly accelerate to the speed limit. (I don't wonder why the slowpokes can't just get themselves the hell into the right lane where they belong. It's plain when you look into their windows as you pass them that they are simply oblivious, sometimes because they're gabbing animatedly on cell phones, sometimes because they just have that look of a person who might as well be living alone in the world for all the consideration he/she shows for everyone else.)
I think the explanation may have something to do with how people react to wide open spaces depending on whether they've always had them or never had them. Those of us who spent most of our driving time on narrow, crowded Eastern or Midwestern streets where the traffic usually moves like molasses if it moves at all, can't help feeling a surge of joy, followed instantly by a surge of acceleration, whenever we see in front of us a stretch of open road. Is there anything more wonderful to a Chicago commuter, for example, than a sudden multi-car-length open space after an hour of crawling along on the Kennedy behind the same bumper? I don't think so.
(It used to take me hours to get bumper sticker slogans out of my head. Why is it so hard to stop reading those things over and over and over when they're emblazoned on something peeling off a bumper a few inches in front of your car? During my commuting years, I developed a whole theory about the mean-spirited "mine is better than yours" theme that characterizes so many bumper stickers, but that's a post for another day.)
Unlike drivers accustomed to very little in the way of opportunities to go 45 mph on city streets, people who learned to drive in the wide open west (or have assimilated it better, evidently, than I have) respond totally differently to the chance to go fast. They seem to feel no need whatsoever to take advantage of it.
I've been trying to figure out why anyone, faced with a stretch of open road, wouldn't promptly accelerate to the speed limit. (I don't wonder why the slowpokes can't just get themselves the hell into the right lane where they belong. It's plain when you look into their windows as you pass them that they are simply oblivious, sometimes because they're gabbing animatedly on cell phones, sometimes because they just have that look of a person who might as well be living alone in the world for all the consideration he/she shows for everyone else.)
I think the explanation may have something to do with how people react to wide open spaces depending on whether they've always had them or never had them. Those of us who spent most of our driving time on narrow, crowded Eastern or Midwestern streets where the traffic usually moves like molasses if it moves at all, can't help feeling a surge of joy, followed instantly by a surge of acceleration, whenever we see in front of us a stretch of open road. Is there anything more wonderful to a Chicago commuter, for example, than a sudden multi-car-length open space after an hour of crawling along on the Kennedy behind the same bumper? I don't think so.
(It used to take me hours to get bumper sticker slogans out of my head. Why is it so hard to stop reading those things over and over and over when they're emblazoned on something peeling off a bumper a few inches in front of your car? During my commuting years, I developed a whole theory about the mean-spirited "mine is better than yours" theme that characterizes so many bumper stickers, but that's a post for another day.)
Unlike drivers accustomed to very little in the way of opportunities to go 45 mph on city streets, people who learned to drive in the wide open west (or have assimilated it better, evidently, than I have) respond totally differently to the chance to go fast. They seem to feel no need whatsoever to take advantage of it.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
DPG
I met a wonderful woman two years after I started practicing law. She was also a corporate lawyer, fresh out of law school, who joined the firm I was with. I thought she was terrific from the instant we met. She had the sharpest, wittiest, most ironic sense of humor, a quick intelligence, and more than the usual allotment of plain good sense. She was tall and lanky (to this day, I have never met a woman who looked better in a pair of jeans), and she had twinkly blue eyes and a shock of smooth blond hair cut perfectly to compliment her delicate, high-cheekboned face. We soon became friends outside of work as well. We liked each other's husbands (not always a given) and they liked each other, too. In fact, they developed a close friendship quite independent of us and it flourishes to this day, 27 years later.
For some reason I forgot long ago, my friend and I took to walking home together after work. Well, not home exactly. We'd leave our offices at Dearborn and Madison in Chicago's Loop and walk up Michigan Avenue to Water Tower Place, where she would head east to her Streeterville apartment and I would jump on the 135 bus up to Belmont Harbor.
On those walks, we talked about anything and everything, and the conversations were so engaging that I never even noticed the actual walking. (Anyone who knows me knows that I rarely walk even a block without complaining, and that was only slightly less true 27 years ago. Trudging, especially for over a mile through heat, humidity and Chicago's pedestrian traffic, has never been a favorite activity of mine. Add to that the more formal work clothes and shoes we wore in the 80s and you'll get an idea of how truly great our conversations were.) We cut the more pompous of our colleagues down to size, we solved legal problems, we griped about the illogicalities of our work environment, and we plotted strategies for our careers and our lives.
I'm convinced that those conversations were a big part of what set us on the road to career success. Having similarly-situated girlfriends is necessary to flourishing in settings where we are not the norm, where the rules were not written by or for us, and where we have to question our instincts because, however solid they may be in other arenas, they are not usually hardwired for naturally understanding how to succeed in male-dominated work environments. During the early years of my career, I felt like an impostor most of the time and, occasionally, like an unwelcome interloper. In addition to being incredibly supportive and reassuring, my daily conversations with my friend as we walked up Michigan Avenue kept me sane, grounded and focused. They helped me be happy at work. And they were the inspiration for the "girls club" scenes, which I loved writing, in A Merger of Equals.
After a few years, I had a baby and left the firm for a more workable schedule at a company in the suburbs. Not too long after, my friend did the same. She and her family moved west of the city; I had moved north with mine. We saw each other frequently at first, then less frequently, then rarely, although we always stayed in touch through our husbands, if not directly. I have never forgotten or stopped being grateful for our years of working together and walking together.
My husband and I have just flown home from my friend's heartbreaking funeral. Heartbreaking because she was a superb, intelligent, humorous person the world shouldn't be without. Heartbreaking because she was much too young and she spent the last two and a half years in a nasty battle with cancer. Heartbreaking because she leaves behind three amazing daughters and an exceptionally wonderful husband, as well as siblings, a parent, nieces, nephews, and countless friends, all of whom will miss her terribly. I feel incredibly lucky to have had her as a close friend and colleague when I needed her most.
Requiescat in pace.
For some reason I forgot long ago, my friend and I took to walking home together after work. Well, not home exactly. We'd leave our offices at Dearborn and Madison in Chicago's Loop and walk up Michigan Avenue to Water Tower Place, where she would head east to her Streeterville apartment and I would jump on the 135 bus up to Belmont Harbor.
On those walks, we talked about anything and everything, and the conversations were so engaging that I never even noticed the actual walking. (Anyone who knows me knows that I rarely walk even a block without complaining, and that was only slightly less true 27 years ago. Trudging, especially for over a mile through heat, humidity and Chicago's pedestrian traffic, has never been a favorite activity of mine. Add to that the more formal work clothes and shoes we wore in the 80s and you'll get an idea of how truly great our conversations were.) We cut the more pompous of our colleagues down to size, we solved legal problems, we griped about the illogicalities of our work environment, and we plotted strategies for our careers and our lives.
I'm convinced that those conversations were a big part of what set us on the road to career success. Having similarly-situated girlfriends is necessary to flourishing in settings where we are not the norm, where the rules were not written by or for us, and where we have to question our instincts because, however solid they may be in other arenas, they are not usually hardwired for naturally understanding how to succeed in male-dominated work environments. During the early years of my career, I felt like an impostor most of the time and, occasionally, like an unwelcome interloper. In addition to being incredibly supportive and reassuring, my daily conversations with my friend as we walked up Michigan Avenue kept me sane, grounded and focused. They helped me be happy at work. And they were the inspiration for the "girls club" scenes, which I loved writing, in A Merger of Equals.
After a few years, I had a baby and left the firm for a more workable schedule at a company in the suburbs. Not too long after, my friend did the same. She and her family moved west of the city; I had moved north with mine. We saw each other frequently at first, then less frequently, then rarely, although we always stayed in touch through our husbands, if not directly. I have never forgotten or stopped being grateful for our years of working together and walking together.
My husband and I have just flown home from my friend's heartbreaking funeral. Heartbreaking because she was a superb, intelligent, humorous person the world shouldn't be without. Heartbreaking because she was much too young and she spent the last two and a half years in a nasty battle with cancer. Heartbreaking because she leaves behind three amazing daughters and an exceptionally wonderful husband, as well as siblings, a parent, nieces, nephews, and countless friends, all of whom will miss her terribly. I feel incredibly lucky to have had her as a close friend and colleague when I needed her most.
Requiescat in pace.
Saturday, June 7, 2008
You Exist Even if We Aren't Watching
I just read a post written by my favorite of the bloggers I don't know personally in reaction to the apparently now infamous May 25 story about blogging in The New York Times Magazine. My husband left the magazine on the coffee table for me to read a few days after May 25, but I wasn't intrigued enough to pick it up and start reading the story until today. Having now read both the story and my favorite blog-stranger's take on it, I have to say I'm utterly mystified.
These young women (interesting writers, both) seem to crave not approval, but notice. Like little children at play who scream "Watch me! Watch me!" every five seconds (sometimes exuberantly, sometimes with panic), they seem uncertain that life without an audience is worth the effort or, for that matter, even real. Overlaying and permeating their musings, like glaze on a cake, is a yearning for the validation of their existence that only other people's awareness of it can provide.
Why do they need this, I wonder? Why do they lay themselves bare to attract it? Why are they willing to endure savage commentary to assure themselves that they have it?
Of course, I too use my private life as fodder for my writing. My innermost thoughts, feelings and experiences (including the intimate and embarrassing ones) inform, and sometimes appear in, my books and essays. But their purpose there is to make the writing true and compelling, not to assure myself that I exist or to draw attention to me personally. I love the freedom of anonymity.
I can't imagine merging my private life and my blog, not because (or only because) I have no desire to lay myself bare on the Internet or, for that matter, to be famous. I don't merge them because the privacy of my private life is what allows it to flourish. Its privacy enhances its immediacy, its authenticity and its meaning to the only person who needs to find meaning in it - me.
Perhaps this is simply the difference between a 54-year-old who has already enjoyed/endured enough notice from other people to last her comfortably for the rest of her life, however long it may last, and someone in her 20s who is, evidently, somewhat unsure about what form her career and life will/should/can take.
Maybe it's all connected somehow to social life having evolved from entirely face-to-face interaction to largely electronic interaction where no one has to know the real you and you can create any persona you like (at least until you're outed). It's hard, not to mention really rather inappropriate, to discuss the intimate details of your life face-to-face with any but your closest friends. Those of us who grew up in a face-to-face world are, I suspect, as unlikely to share intimate details over the Internet as we are to discuss them with the cashier at the grocery store or our colleagues at work.
But if your social life is conducted more from a keyboard than a larynx, maybe you don't feel the same inhibitions. When you're as satisfied with a typed "Hahaha" in response to your joke as you would be with a guffaw and the sight of someone's face creased into the wonderful-to-see lines and angles necessary to produce laughter, maybe it's not such a leap to skin yourself alive in public.
That still doesn't explain the need for external validation of one's very existence, though. I totally understand craving approval. Who doesn't crave it at least occasionally? But approval is not the same thing as notice, or even celebrity. Both linked articles evince a depressing suspicion that a life has no satisfactory meaning and possibly no actuality if no one else notices it. This goes well beyond the old "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?" conundrum. (BTW, d'uh. Obviously, it did. The existence of sound doesn't depend on the presence of ears to hear it - it's only the meaning of the sound that requires ears and the consciousness that goes with them.)
Two very successful 20-somethings told me over lunch recently that they know many people in their generation who can't overcome a certain aimlessness and lack of passion for their careers and their lives. My lunch companions said they thought a big part of the problem was that young people feel overwhelmed by all the options open to them and incapable of choosing among those options and getting on with their lives. This is hard for any Baby Boomer, especially a woman, to hear. We would have killed for the options available to today's version of our 22-25 year-old selves. (As one of my 50-ish male friends said when I repeated this to him, "That's total crap! What a bunch of crybabies! How can having lots of options be a bad thing?!")
Now I'm thinking that there's a similarity between responding to virtually unlimited options with paralysis and needing other people to assure you that you actually and meaningfully exist.
Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost our faith in internal standards. What happened to to living your life and pursuing your dreams and making your contribution to satisfy yourself? What happened to using your own ears to validate your existence and suss out its meaning? Other people can't really do this for you, and why would you want to let them even if they could?
These young women (interesting writers, both) seem to crave not approval, but notice. Like little children at play who scream "Watch me! Watch me!" every five seconds (sometimes exuberantly, sometimes with panic), they seem uncertain that life without an audience is worth the effort or, for that matter, even real. Overlaying and permeating their musings, like glaze on a cake, is a yearning for the validation of their existence that only other people's awareness of it can provide.
Why do they need this, I wonder? Why do they lay themselves bare to attract it? Why are they willing to endure savage commentary to assure themselves that they have it?
Of course, I too use my private life as fodder for my writing. My innermost thoughts, feelings and experiences (including the intimate and embarrassing ones) inform, and sometimes appear in, my books and essays. But their purpose there is to make the writing true and compelling, not to assure myself that I exist or to draw attention to me personally. I love the freedom of anonymity.
I can't imagine merging my private life and my blog, not because (or only because) I have no desire to lay myself bare on the Internet or, for that matter, to be famous. I don't merge them because the privacy of my private life is what allows it to flourish. Its privacy enhances its immediacy, its authenticity and its meaning to the only person who needs to find meaning in it - me.
Perhaps this is simply the difference between a 54-year-old who has already enjoyed/endured enough notice from other people to last her comfortably for the rest of her life, however long it may last, and someone in her 20s who is, evidently, somewhat unsure about what form her career and life will/should/can take.
Maybe it's all connected somehow to social life having evolved from entirely face-to-face interaction to largely electronic interaction where no one has to know the real you and you can create any persona you like (at least until you're outed). It's hard, not to mention really rather inappropriate, to discuss the intimate details of your life face-to-face with any but your closest friends. Those of us who grew up in a face-to-face world are, I suspect, as unlikely to share intimate details over the Internet as we are to discuss them with the cashier at the grocery store or our colleagues at work.
But if your social life is conducted more from a keyboard than a larynx, maybe you don't feel the same inhibitions. When you're as satisfied with a typed "Hahaha" in response to your joke as you would be with a guffaw and the sight of someone's face creased into the wonderful-to-see lines and angles necessary to produce laughter, maybe it's not such a leap to skin yourself alive in public.
That still doesn't explain the need for external validation of one's very existence, though. I totally understand craving approval. Who doesn't crave it at least occasionally? But approval is not the same thing as notice, or even celebrity. Both linked articles evince a depressing suspicion that a life has no satisfactory meaning and possibly no actuality if no one else notices it. This goes well beyond the old "If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?" conundrum. (BTW, d'uh. Obviously, it did. The existence of sound doesn't depend on the presence of ears to hear it - it's only the meaning of the sound that requires ears and the consciousness that goes with them.)
Two very successful 20-somethings told me over lunch recently that they know many people in their generation who can't overcome a certain aimlessness and lack of passion for their careers and their lives. My lunch companions said they thought a big part of the problem was that young people feel overwhelmed by all the options open to them and incapable of choosing among those options and getting on with their lives. This is hard for any Baby Boomer, especially a woman, to hear. We would have killed for the options available to today's version of our 22-25 year-old selves. (As one of my 50-ish male friends said when I repeated this to him, "That's total crap! What a bunch of crybabies! How can having lots of options be a bad thing?!")
Now I'm thinking that there's a similarity between responding to virtually unlimited options with paralysis and needing other people to assure you that you actually and meaningfully exist.
Somewhere along the way we seem to have lost our faith in internal standards. What happened to to living your life and pursuing your dreams and making your contribution to satisfy yourself? What happened to using your own ears to validate your existence and suss out its meaning? Other people can't really do this for you, and why would you want to let them even if they could?
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Peach-Colored Glasses
I swim every day in a very dry climate with very hard water, so I go through swimming goggles at a robust clip. I've been alternating between the same two kinds for years, and I usually get them with either clear or blue-tinted lenses. For some reason, the last time I ordered I decided it would be fun to try different colors. And it is fun, too, but I just opened a brand new set, this one with peach-colored lenses, and was totally taken aback when I put them on. They tint the world the oddest color. It's like swimming through nuclear winter.
My perception is probably somewhat influenced by the spate of World War II movies I've watched recently, but the sight of bright blue skies, palm trees waving in the wind, and sparkling water all tinted peach is actually rather unsettling. It makes me want to look around for the mushroom cloud. On the plus side, though, the second I take the goggles off, real colors seem extra vivid and beautiful, as if they've been polished.
My perception is probably somewhat influenced by the spate of World War II movies I've watched recently, but the sight of bright blue skies, palm trees waving in the wind, and sparkling water all tinted peach is actually rather unsettling. It makes me want to look around for the mushroom cloud. On the plus side, though, the second I take the goggles off, real colors seem extra vivid and beautiful, as if they've been polished.
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